Time, Language and the Destruction of Power

摘要

In the wake of current interest in the messianic, an attempt is made here to view this Judeo-Christian notion in conjunction with the Hindu—Buddhist notion of the “avatara”. A creative rapprochement is also intended between corresponding notions of time, language and destruction of power in the two distinct traditions through some of the texts of Walter Benjamin and of the early Indian philosopher of language, Bhartrhari. The historical movement of language, for Benjamin, is from its origin in the “name” to its culmination in “pure language”, mediated by a plurality of languages. Nature, which is unnamed, remains mute and at the most is in a state of lamentation through language. In contrast to the “overnaming” of things in the plurality of human languages, art and poetry render them into a state of melancholy. In Bhartrhari, the linguistically named objects or “means” of action are the sadhana, which are perpetually in a state of siddha (“accomplished”) or sadhya (“to be accomplished”). In the conscious state of a human as sadhana, he/she retreats from the normal course of actions in time. The melancholic figure of the sadhu, we may say, is that of one who has internalized the experiences of the past, or rather of all destruction wrought by time, and on the other hand, the one who is open to the time to come with hope and promise.